CRITICS$(RSQUO$) CHOICE; Critics' Choice: New CDs

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

Published: July 23, 2007

KORN
(Virgin)

Jonathan Davis is only telling half the story when he sneers: ''Take a look around! Nothing much has changed!'' on Korn's new, untitled album.

Korn's latest songs are, as usual, about pain, alienation and a seething anger. There's little reason to change the tone of wounded rage that has sold millions of albums since Korn's 1994 debut. After all, tormented adolescents give the band a perpetually renewable audience for lines like: ''No direction/No affection/Watch the soul dive.'' Mr. Davis also sings in his usual ways -- a rap-metal bark and growl, a bitterly nasal complaint, an agonized falsetto -- and with his usual cadences and melodic contours. But with this album Korn changes its music from the inside.

Korn was a pioneer of what was briefly called nu metal, which connected the bark of thrash metal to the declamation of hip-hop. Over the last decade Korn gradually de-emphasized rapping and added more melodic choruses, but it kept a basic sound, working itself up sooner or later to down-tuned, knuckle-dragging bass lines from Reginald (Fieldy) Arvizu under James (Munky) Shaffer's guitar power chords.

That full-range crunch hasn't vanished, but it arrives only occasionally on the new album. Instead Korn opens up its production, making room for all sorts of things: sustained guitar lines, sparse piano notes, programmed samples, bits of percussion, vocal harmonies, even silences. There are also glimmers of change in the lyrics: a little more empathy toward ''you'' and a newfound fascination with God. For Korn the album is downright experimental, and there are some ingenious moments, like the song ''Love and Luxury.''

Unfortunately much of what's new for Korn sounds like warmed-over Nine Inch Nails. In setting aside its trademark sound, Korn hasn't yet replaced it with something of its own, but at least the band is working on it. JON PARELES

CHAMILLIONAIRE
''Mixtape Messiah 3''

Two years ago, when a loquacious Houston rapper named Chamillionaire made his solo debut with ''The Sound of Revenge,'' some fans and critics (including this one) were disappointed. But then came ''Ridin,' '' a glorious hip-hop hit that stormed the pop charts, helping the album sell 1.4 million copies in America. If he weren't such a committed frowner, Chamillionaire could have been excused a smirk.

His new album, ''Ultimate Victory'' (Universal), is due out this year, but in the meantime he has returned to the place where he made his name: the mixtape underground. Late last year he released ''Mixtape Messiah 2,'' and now comes the next chapter, ''Mix Tape Messiah 3.'' (Both can be downloaded free at chamillionaire.com.) Delivering his carefully enunciated rhymes over other people's beats, he sounds vindicated but uneasy. He got what he wanted, but does he want what he's got?

Chamillionaire's style is precise and sometimes awkward: The words arrive in a steady rhythm; there's an occasional bit of syncopation when he squeezes in extra syllables. For ''Get on My Level'' he borrows the beat from Fabolous's ''Make Me Better,'' turning a suave hit into a notably unsuave collection of puns: ''If I land somewhere on a island, like the Skipper/The sex on the beach that I'm-a give her is not liquor.'' In ''It's Just Pain,'' a prayerful remake of ''Renegade'' by Jay-Z and Eminem, he seems to forgive his partner-turned-enemy, Paul Wall.

Best of all is ''Don't Hurt Em Hammer,'' which recycles the beat from Common's current single, ''The People.'' He spends two minutes rhyming and singing about his frustration with hip-hop (''In love with rap so I made the mistake and married it/Now I'm feelin' like, 'Get away from me, you embarrassin' ''), then spends two more minutes explaining -- calmly and disarmingly -- that he doesn't really enjoy rapping anymore. No doubt the executives at Universal are hoping he changes his mind, or learns how to fake it. KELEFA SANNEH

TREY ANASTASIO
''The Horseshoe Curve''
(Rubber Jungle)

Three years have passed since the ceremonial farewell of Phish, the epochal New England jam band, and the guitarist Trey Anastasio has been busy. He released solo albums in 2005 and 2006, both on his Rubber Jungle label. He toured with a band he called 70 Volt Parade. More recently, in April, he pleaded guilty to a felony charge of attempted criminal possession of a controlled substance. So ''The Horseshoe Curve,'' his new album, arrives not only as part of a continuum but also as a token of happier times.

Drawing deeply from the wellspring of Nigerian Afrobeat -- but without its mandate of political dissidence -- the album revels in roiling percussion, chirpy horns and extended, ecstatic solos. There are no lyrics, aside from the shouted title of ''Burlap Sack & Pumps,'' one of the better jams. But words aren't really needed here; Mr. Anastasio's hard-driving 10-piece band, stocked with aces like the bassist Tony Markellis and the saxophonist Peter Apfelbaum, renders lyrics extraneous.

The album's centerpiece is a pair of adjacent tracks recorded at an outdoor show in Pittsburgh five years ago: quite another era, for Phish fans as well as their hero. ''The 5th Round'' finds Mr. Anastasio in blazing guitar-monster mode, and he sounds positively unstoppable. Then comes the title track, punctuated two and half minutes in by the cathartic blare of a passing train. It's a wild and serendipitous moment, the kind that jam-band audiences live for. Obviously Mr. Anastasio remembers it as fondly as anyone else. NATE CHINEN

MICK TURNER/TREN BROTHERS
''Blue Trees''
(Drag City)

Slow down. Why do we associate summer with beats that are brisk, or at least midtempo? Shouldn't there be a phlegmatic summer music, the kind that doesn't let you break a sweat?

There's not a lot out there by the ghostly sounding, slow-moving duo the Tren Brothers -- the guitarist Mick Turner and the drummer Jim White, who are two-thirds of the Australian instrumental-rock band Dirty Three -- or by Mr. Turner as a solo artist. Over a decade it amounts to a few albums and EPs, some singles, a track here and there on compilation records. So it's amusing to see what we have here: an album of out-of-print rarities, the kind of milestone you expect from old masters or small fry who become overnight successes.

Like Dirty Three, Tren Brothers play a grief-haunted instrumental music of simple chord progressions, but without the hyper-dramatic, almost maudlin element of Dirty Three's violinist, Warren Ellis. Here Mr. Turner plays electric guitar in warm, oozing strums, with little distortion and an implicit groove; he creates quiet loops of this as background and then layers finger-picked solos on top that can sound almost accidental, like a cat walking over a guitar, catching a string here or there.

And the drummer Mr. White, is always sketching out a pulse, even when the songs are so slow and rubato that they're almost evaporating. Like Mr. Turner he's not after a display of technical precision. In pieces like ''Swing (Parts 1 & 2)'' and ''Away'' all the little discrepancies between beats are working in the service of feeling and expression, and he uses dramatic gestures: a low-tuned bass drum thudded hard in a quiet song; a superlong snare roll; the tiny well-placed tap of a brush on a cymbal. In short, he's fantastic.

The album's second half is Mr. Turner solo, sometimes accompanying himself with keyboards or harmonica or drums. They're prettytracks, with much of the same deliberation. But inevitably something seems lacking: that strange, persistent, internal compass. It's Mr. White. BEN RATLIFF